The Farne Islands is an island off of the coast of Northumberland, England, and it is a popular place to see seals and nesting sea birds, such as puffins. The island is maintained by National Trust, and they manage visitors to the island. Boats from Seahouses harbour either sail around the island, or visitors can land on Staple Island to see the birds up close at certain times of the year. Boats only visit the island at certain times of the year due to the nesting birds. I visited the Farne Islands in mid-July and sailed with Billy Shiels boats.
The Farne Islands have 23 different species of birds and around 43,000 pairs of puffin. There are also about 2,000 seal pups born every year. A medieval chapel and Victorian lighthouse (which were not open during my visit) are also located on the island. The islands off the coast of Northumberland were popular medieval religious sites in Celtic Christianity. St. Cuthbert lived on the island in the 7th century.
After leaving Seahouses harbour, we circled some of the Farne Islands to locate seals. I could not hear what the boat speaker was saying, but it was identifying the types of birds and giving fatcs on them and the seals, but it wasn't loud enough to hear over the motor and waves. The whole journey to the Farne Islands and back took approximately four hours with an hour on Staple Island.
One island had several seals, and a couple of them decided to come into the water and swim closer to us.
We landed on Staple Island, and there is a wooden walkway around the island so that you can walk without disturbing the nesting birds or crushing their eggs. Visitors must keep to the paths and follow the rules to avoid stressing out the birds.
During my visit in mid-July, there were many baby chicks. The island was very loud with the sounds of birds, and it was also very smelly of bird.
I took several photographs of the different sea birds and their chicks. I am afraid that I am not good at identifying them, though, even though there were information boards on the island to identify the different types of bird. They all look the same to me, except for the puffins.
I did manage to see a couple of puffin chicks. The puffin parents make holes in the ground for their nests, and their chicks live in them until they are old enough to come out to take care of themselves.
After the hour on the island, we boarded the boat, and we circled a few more islands before starting the journey back to Seahouses. As we were about to leave, the rain started to come down. For the last thirty minutes, the rain bucketed it down on the open-top boat. I got soaked.
Finally, we arrived back into the harbour. The name of the boat was St Cuthbert II, which I got a photograph of.
The visit to the Farne Islands was really good. I've never done anything like this before, and it was a really good visit. The weather on the island was actually ok, even though it was mostly cloudy. At least it stayed dry while on the island. Mid-July is also a nice time to visit, but early August may be better for seeing the baby puffins, which had not started to emerge from their ground hole nests just yet.
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